A skate typically has a skate boot and a ground-engaging skate element such as a blade or a set of inline rollers attached to the underside of the boot. Typical “lasted” skate boots are made in a manner similar to traditional shoe making techniques. Small pieces having various shapes and form, typically made from different materials, are usually superimposed on a last one by one, where they are worked to form the appropriate foot shape and secured via stitching, gluing, tacking, etc. Lasted skate boots are usually not identical to one another since they are each individually made by hand.
It is also known to make a flat “sandwich” of the laminated layers of material of which the boot is to be made, with the sandwich of interconnected layers being put on the last and bent into shape. However the bending may induce stresses, particularly at the interface between the layers.
It is also known to mold skate boots from relatively rigid plastic or composite material, as a monolithic shell or with sub-shells. Monolithic shell boots may tend to be overly rigid. For boot having sub-shells, the connection between sub-shells may be inadequate and/or induce stresses on the skate boot.